Elizabeth Frankenberg joins UNC as Professor of Sociology and Director of the Carolina Population Center. She is a distinguished sociologist and demographer whose scholarship focuses on family, health, natural disasters, public policy, and well-being. Frankenberg has directed major longitudinal studies in Indonesia including the Indonesian Family Life Survey and the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery, funded by grants from NIA and NICHD. Her papers have appeared in the leading social science journals for population, health, geography, and related fields. In addition, she is active and plays important leadership roles in the Population Association of America and the American Sociological Association, and she was recently elected as Chair of the Population Section of the ASA.
Before joining UNC, Frankenberg held positions at RAND, UCLA, and Duke. She earned an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and then received her PhD in Sociology and Demography from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. Frankenberg received a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986, and we are excited to welcome her back to Carolina!